For Nepali cricket that was the moment. The moment came after some enormous tension, but to everyone of us, it was worth the wait.
After Nepal slumped to 144 for 9, the hopes had fainted. With two tailenders at the crease and Canada booming with momentum, it almost seemed as if Nepal were slipping out from one of their biggest cricketing achievements so far.
Ball-by-ball, the tensions grew. Hearts raced everytime young Sandeep Lamichhane was at the crease. Everyone waited for Karan KC to take the strike and keep the hopes alive. And so it happened, Nepal went to the last six balls with eight runs to win and Karan KC at the crease. What had happened has already made everyone finish their fingernails.
Canada mounted at the Windhoek Cricket Ground yet again. Four dot balls in, Nepal now required eight off the last two balls to win. In came the hero, Karan KC smashed one out of the park to ease the pressure not just off himself, but the whole nation refreshing the scorecards every second. And finally, it did happen. 14th of February 2018, the Cardiac Kids gifted the whole nation with joy and hopes – hopes of finally seeing an ascend and an opportunity to avoid a downfall like post-2014 T20 World Cup Campaign.
What makes ODI cricket so interesting is, it bridges the longest and the shortest form of the game. Seeing your country climb up to the ranks to play the type of cricket you grew up watching was definitely coming true, but deep down we all knew we weren’t as ready as we’d have liked. Was Nepal ready?
In came the day. 1st of August, 2018, Nepal play Netherlands in VRA Ground, Amstelveen. Netherlands themselves were a team that exactly knew how tough it was to get a hold of the ODI spot and maintain it at the topmost level. Once a prolific side that did very well at the associates, the rise of Ireland and Afghanistan with swift development on the other side had made Netherlands suffer. While the fixture was a beginning for young Nepali side, it was just another ODI for the men in Orange.
Nepal’s bowling did its job on the day like it has done regularly in the recent times. This time, pacers rose to the occasion, sharing eight wickets between them. Sompal Kami grabbed three, Karan KC bagged one and the captain, Paras Khadka, took 4 for 26 in his ten overs. Nepali bowlers restricted Netherlands inside 48 overs, handing the batting department to score 190 to get Nepal’s ODI journey to a dream start.
Did that happen? No. Why? We weren’t ready by any means.
Despite a stable start by the top-order, Nepal fell straight into the arms of the Dutch bowlers. Gyanendra Malla scored a 51 opening the innings, backed by the likes of Anil Shah with a 21 runs-innings. The two batsmen that followed, Paras Khadka and Dipendra Singh Airee nudged up 12 and 33 runs, before the storm started for Nepal.
Four batsmen that followed didn’t even bother to trouble the score-keeper. With no other batsman touching the double figures, Nepal fell short of the Netherlands by 55 runs, managing only 134 in 41.5.
All the fragility in batting came from lack of structure that Nepal failed to construct domestically. Like every other 50-over game that Nepal had played prior to the fixture, lack of strike rotation, lack of a proper middle-order batsman who could model the innings and set things up for a fine end were the shortcomings. Nepal was 1-0 down in the series, and it was yet again up to the players to pull a rabbit out of their hats. And that was the only way left. Just two days after the first taste of what ODI cricket felt like, Nepal were going to face the same opposition again – this time with an opportunity to improve and draw the series 1-1.
3rd of August 2018. VRA Ground, Amstelveen.
Paras Khadka wins the toss and elects to bat first.
In came the openers – Gyanendra Malla and Subash Khakurel. Khakurel, who opened the innings for the Rhinos during their peak, returned to the side after few quite years in his cricketing career. Nepal didn’t expect to improve overnight, and they didn’t.
The openers failed to create a foundation, as both went cheap early on. A stand-out performance that made Nepali batting tick was Paras Khadka’s metronomic innings of 51, followed by an explosive and vital 61 off 47 innings from Sompal Kami. Nepal were on verge of crumbling again on the batting side of things, but Sompal’s innings somehow managed to take Nepal to a total of 216. Main thing to note here was, Nepal, yet again failed to play the full fifty overs. And as I pointed out above, someone had to pull the rabbit out of their hat to make things work. In this case, Sompal was the magician that did what was unexpected of him – 61 off 47 deliveries.
As always, Nepal’s bowling did what it was assigned to do. In the turn of events, Nepal’s new-found young leg-spinning superstar Sandeep Lamichhane took charge of the department, bagging 4 wickets in his 10 overs. This slowed the Dutch down and shifted the momentum towards Nepal.
After Fred Klaassen failed to make it to his crease in the very last ball, Nepali cricket team pulled off its maiden ODI victory in its second ODI fixture, winning yet another nail-biting fixture by just a run. The way that Nepali bowling sprung in this particular fixture was an evident instance of how players have stepped up more that what they’ve been offered. In the short journey that Nepali team had traveled back then, the victory was a huge boost to the team and for everyone, was a sense of belief that if Nepal did it right, Nepal was going to stay.
Two years since Nepal won its maiden ODI, not much has changed. Nepal has played ten ODIs in the process, winning half of them. The journey brought the format home as well, as Nepal played its ICC Cricket World Cup League 2 fixture in its only home ground at Kirtipur. Although this might seem an okay-ish start for the nation, the shortcomings still persist.
Two years in, Nepal still seem to struggle introducing a proper domestic exposure for next generation of players. Luckily, Nepal have never really been short of cricketing talents. Despite having limited access to almost everything, the team has performed all on its own, covering the shortcomings carried by the domestic system. The present generation, with half of the golden age cricketers still in the side, might find ways to win with all the experience and individual skill set that the squad members carry, but what lies next is what the road should be about. Two years since Nepal won its first, two years in the road and still, a long way to go…